When a friend asked me a while ago if I wanted to do an Everest (ride up and down the same hill over and over until you have a total ascent of 8848m – the height of Mt Everest above sea level) my first thought was “not really”. But then he mentioned that it was for a good cause, and the training benefit that it would bring, and that the date had just shifted so that it didn’t clash with what I consider the best one-day race in the country, and I thought again.
Cloud Ride Prologue
Ok, if you haven’t already heard the news, I’m heading back for another crack at the Transcontinental. I’m all signed up and will be heading off from Bulgaria in late July. I know I can ride that far, so the aim for this time is to do it quickly. I developed a great training plan, and have totally failed to stick to it, but hopefully things will pick up in the next few weeks.
Anyway, with that in mind it seemed like time to do another long race, so I did. There is a great off-road race called the Cloudride that starts and finishes in Canberra that I’ve thought about doing for a long time, and I’m not doing it this year either.
What I did do though was the Cloudride Prologue, a 500km race designed as an entry into bikepacking and/or a testing ground for gear and set-up.